1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method, system, and program for invoking methods between computer languages.
2. Description of the Related Art
On a computing platform, programs written in one computer language may need to call methods implemented in programs in a different computer language. This need for cross-platform accessibility is common because many programs, including legacy programs, are written in C++ and many newer programs, including methods that are desirable to make available to the legacy programs, are written in the Java™ computer language. (Java is a trademark of Sun Microsystems, Inc.).
The Java Native Interface (JNI) programming interface allows Java code running in a Java Virtual Machine (JVM) to operate with applications and libraries written in other languages, such as C, C++, and assembly. The JNI framework allows the native methods to utilize and create Java objects, and then inspect and use these objects to perform tasks. Both the native language side and the Java side of the application can create, update and access Java objects and share the objects. The native code accesses the Java methods by calling JNI methods. The JNI framework is discussed in the publication “Java Native Interface Specification, Release 1.1” (Copyright Sun Microsystems, Inc. 1997).